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Zend Server monitors PHP scripts

Zend Technologies, a major contributor to the development of PHP, has announced the release of version 5.0 of its Zend PHP Web application server. Zend Server is a complete package for implementing web applications via PHP. In addition to the web and application server, the company also offers the Zend Studio development environment for Eclipse and Zend's PHP framework. Zend released version 1.10.2 of the framework at the same time as the new server release.

Zend Server features the new code tracing option for recording the execution of PHP scripts already highlighted in the beta version. The application monitoring and diagnostics tool records the hierarchies of function calls including submitted arguments and return values, which is designed to help programmers troubleshoot their code. Developers can enable the tracing feature manually, for example when looking for performance bottlenecks. The server automatically activates it when an error is encountered.

Resource-intensive applications will benefit from the Job Queue feature. It allows PHP scripts to be started in batches at a specified time depending on system load or priority. The job queues can be executed on the same machine as the Zend Server or on a different computer. The new server version supports PHP 5.2 as well as PHP 5.3, which was released in summer 2009. This allows PHP developers to include language functions such as closures and namespaces.

The PHP stack works with Windows and Linux, and a beta is currently available for IBM's "i" system software. The minimum annual subscription fee for Zend Server 5.0 including online support is €1,195, while the 24-hour support package costs €3,195. A community variant is available free of charge.